Warren Hudson, who claimed to be Nolan Wells’ “best friend” and was on Horn Island with him before he died, has now answered a widely asked question: did Wells’ friends leave him behind? Hudson told Brandon Tatum, a YouTuber and former police officer, in an interview that the answer is no, and that they were dealing with a boat emergency and Wells willingly stayed behind with a girl he was with.
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“So the bilge is basically a pump that releases water from your boat when water comes in. So I opened the back hatch and there’s water up to the batteries. And that is obviously not good,” recalled Hudson.
“There’s water almost coming over the transom, which is where your motors sit and which is by the stern, in the back part of the boat. So obviously we were in an emergency. We’re trying to save the boat,” he continued.
“It’s not like we didn’t ask Nolan or we just left Nolan. Nolan decided to stay on the island with the girl that he was with. And the girl is a witness to that too,” he added.
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The Ocean Springs, Mississippi, teen was found dead in the water on the northwest end of Horn Island on Monday morning, July 6. Wells went missing on July 4 after taking a boat to the island with friends. The search for the teen was called off after a body was found by a park ranger on Monday, July 6.
“I’ve seen reports of people saying that you just left him. I see reports of people saying that you asked him to get on the boat, told him to get on the boat, he didn’t. What’s the truth in that?” Tatum asked Hudson in a video posted to X.
Hudson explained that there were issues with the boat and that the “bilge wouldn’t pump.”
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An independent autopsy commissioned by Wells’ family was inconclusive, Crump announced Wednesday. The autopsy found the teen’s cause and manner of death to be “undetermined” pending further investigation. Crump announced the preliminary findings in front of a standing-room-only crowd at the annual NAACP National Convention in Chicago.
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The independent autopsy report did not show any evidence of fractures or deep tissue injuries, the Associated Press reported. It also described a “red discoloration” on the back of Wells’ skull as “inconclusive” and meriting further investigation, according to Crump.
Dr. Robert Mitchell, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, wrote in the report that the possibility that “non-accidental factors contributed to or caused the death” could not be ruled out.
